After reading everyone's stuff, I feel better, but still very alone. My husband and I have been together for almost 5 years now. He has 2 daughters- one with an ex GF and one with an ex-wife.
The oldest girl is 12, and lives an hour away, and we never see her because her mother hates my husband and has poisoned the little girl against him. The other daughter is now 9 and we have her once a week and every other weekend. My daughter, from a previous relationship, is almost 12. When my husband and I met, the 9 year old, who i'll call Carla, was 3. She was nice little girl, cute and sweet, but manipulative even at 3. Her mother decided two days after my hubby lost his job because of a closing plant, she didn't love him anymore and wanted a divorce. They had been divorced for almost a year when we met. So Carla doesn't remember her parents together at all. His ex took everything including the child in the divorce, and left him holding all the bills and court costs, including her credit card bills (which were extensive) and a backlog of daycare costs she hadn't been paying. He had no job to pay the court ordered child support, and no money to pay the bills, so he had to file for bankruptcy, while she went home to mommmy and daddy to live for free. He eventually lost his residence and was jumping from friend's house to friend's house just to survive on his $8 an hour job in a grocery store. When we met, he was residing with his dad. My daughter was 5 when we met.
Her dad and I had an on again, off again relationship and I ended up pregnant. He decided he wanted to be with this other woman he had a child with and pretty much left me to my own devices. So my daughter who I'll call "Rose", and I have been on our own since the beginning. Now my daughter is no angel, and she gets worse as she becomes older, but so does every other 11 year old on the planet. She is mouthy and backtalks alot, and is generally lazy, but she gets straight A's and plays softball and basketball and is pretty good at both. She is well behaved and shy in front of other people, and has impeccable manners. People comment all the time about what a good girl she is. So when my husband and I got together, she was ok with it. He taught her how to ride a bike, play softball, mow the lawn, play chess, etc. But he is super strict with her and thinks I baby her. I do not baby her;I have high expectations of her as well, I am just not screaming and bitching at her 24/7 like he is to her. She can't even breathe that he doesn't bitch at her. I stay out of their tiffs for the most part, unless I think he has gone too far or I think he is in the wrong. She is 11, for God's sake, and everyone I know is having the exact same problems that we are who have 11 year olds.
The real problem is Carla. We fight about her non stop and I have a feeling it will separate us eventually. Her mother is a greedy, money grubbing, bar hopping bitch. The child always comes to our house in clothes that are 3x too big or 3x too small, most of the time dirty, shoes that are filthy and worn out, hair looking like a rat's nest and always in her face, bangs always 2 inches too long and hanging in her eyes, and wearing a coat that smells like dog food a smell that penetrates our whole house. She talks 3x louder than everyone else, is always lurking around a corner, always into my daughter's things, won't eat anything but a TV dinner with chicken nuggets or fish sticks, has no hygiene, in other words, she won't wash her hands after using the bathroom, dribbles on the toilet seat, doesn't wipe after peeing and barely wipes after pooing(I do the laundry). She has to be forced to brush her teeth and then it's the quickest brushing you have ever seen. She eats with her hands and her hair is always in her plate, wipes her hands on her clothes and brushes her hands off over the entire table, chews loudly with her mouth open, and spills her drink everytime she eats. She likes to hit and push people when they do not do what she wants them too, and calls people stupid and likes to make loud, rude comments about other people. When disiplined, she stands with her hands on her waist and rolls her eyes and then stares you down. She also likes to cry all the time just to make people feel sorry for her when she has been punished. She has only two chores at our house, and she manages to not do either one or both when she comes over. Making her bed and feeding the cat. Now, she sounds like a monster, right? You got it. I have tried my hardest to love and accept her, trying to teach her how to behave like a human instead of an animal, but every visit is a repeat of the last. My husband says he does not want to make her visits "unpleasant" when she is here, so basically she does wahtever she pleases. He does not treat his daughter like he treats mine, and when I say this to him, he says that his daughter acts the way she does because of her mother and there is nothing we can do, and he knows Rose will turn out to be a good girl, whereas Carla is questionable. What?! This is my house too and I do not appreciate some demon coming over here and acting like a farm animal. Her mother teaches her nothing useful except how to be a money grubber, a user of people, a bitch to other people, how to drink beer and shots, and how to act immature when she doesn't get her way. In other words, Carla is her mother. Now my husband has been coaching softball for Rose since she was 5, and his daughter has had no interest in softball. She plays soccer and that is the only sport her mother wants her to play, because it fits into her schedule and she wants Carla to play it. Now, Carla is not a sporty girl. She is bossy and controlling on the field, and is not very athletic at all. But my husband's ex wife made him feel guilty (like she does with everything)and told him that Carla feels like she doesn't get as much attention as Rose and it's because he is involved with Rose's sports and not Carla's. So he tried to get the ex to let her play softball where Rose does, but she refused to let her, saying that she would'nt be with people she knows and those were'nt her friends, even though she plays soccer with complete strangers. Then Rose had an oppotunity to play ASA sotfball and he would help coach. Suddenly, Carla had to play on the team too, even though she has never played before and she is too young. My husband insisted she get to "practice" with the team, and the other coach said OK, and then my husband tells Carla that if she is good enough, the other coach might let her play. Now, I can tell you that it will NEVER happen, because she isn't good and there are 13 girls on this team and they will play before she ever would. Here is another problem. My husband insists that Carla have EVERTHING that the other girls do even though she won't even be playing on the team. The other coach is simply humoring hubby because of Rose. Hubby has to pick up Carla, 3x a week, not including the days she comes to our house, for practice and take her home. This is 40 minutes out of his way, but only 15 minutes for the ex. The practices are always over by 7:30 but he has to take Carla home, and by the time Rose gets home, it is 9:00 and she still has to shower, eat, and do homework. So I have had to pick her up so that she can get home at a decent hour, so now we are wasting two tanks of gas! The ex refuses to bring Carla to practice or pick up because practice is either during their dinnertime or her son's bedtime and she refuses to reschedule anything, or help pay for anything, even though she said she would help. We are forking out a fortune for both of these girls, one who isn't even going to play!!!! We have had to cut our budget in 1/2 to get by. My husband just doesn't get it. He says that Carla is his daughter and that she should not suffer because of her mother's stupidityand that it is only fair that she get the same things as Rose. I think it is unfair of the ex to not be a parent and co-parent this activity she said she would help with. Why should we be taken advantage of? She knows he will pay for everything because of the guilt factor and she counts on it. And he kowtows everytime. We are eating ramen noodles for dinners and residing in a 60 degree atmoshpere during the winter just to get by. Meanwhile, she claims she has no money to help out but eats out 4x a week or more, always has new clothes, and drives a new car. She has remarried and has another child who is 2. Her husband has a job that pays well as so does she. She lives in a rent free house that her parents GAVE her and takes her children to a different babysitter, using her friends, to avoid paying a babysitter. Yet, she never has any money and is always calling my husband saying she needs her check early or she needs more or he needs to pay for this or that. He always pays her child support and has never been late with it, but it is still not enough. She pays no attention to her daughter where the attention is needed. In fact, the last time Carla came to our house, she couldn't remember the last time she took a shower and when my hubby called the ex, neither could she. Last year, we took the girls to DisneyWorld, and Carla's mother bashed it before we went and then wouldn't give her any spending money of her own, and made Carla feel guilty for going because she was going to miss one day of school and two soccer games, and when we were there, made her cry for "leaving Mommy", when she talked to her on the phone. In fact, at DW, Carla had the worst manners. She ran into people, cut them off, made fun of other people's autograph books in front of them, complained about swimming in the pool, ate like a pig(literally)in the restaurants, and it goes on and on. I wanted to put her on a plane home by the 2nd day. She cried and threw a fit before we got on every ride because she was scared and then acted a fool during the rides and after we got off. None of the rides there are anything serious enough to act that way, as she had been on them before. My hubby babied her the whole time and made it worse. Then when we got home and I was doing laundry, Carla had pooed in almost every single pair of underwear she had because she did not wipe! I sent every single pair of these home to her mother and when hubby tried to talk to the ex about it, she blamed him. And there are a million more stories and examples, but it is redundant. My husband thinks that I just hate his kid, and I really do now. I try to hide it, but he knows. I cannot seem to stop my hatred. What should I do!?!?